Habakuk 2:7

2:7 Your creditors will suddenly attack; ¹ 

those who terrify you will spring into action, ² 

and they will rob you. ³ 

Habakuk 2:16

2:16 But you will become drunk ⁴  with shame, not majesty. ⁵ 

Now it is your turn to drink and expose your uncircumcised foreskin! ⁶ 

The cup of wine in the Lord’s right hand ⁷  is coming to you,

and disgrace will replace your majestic glory!

Habakuk 2:6

The Proud Babylonians are as Good as Dead

2:6 “But all these nations will someday taunt him ⁸ 

and ridicule him with proverbial sayings: ⁹ 

‘The one who accumulates what does not belong to him is as good as dead ¹⁰ 

(How long will this go on?) ¹¹  –

he who gets rich by extortion!’ ¹² 

[2:7]  ¹ tn Heb “Will not your creditors suddenly rise up?” The rhetorical question assumes the response, “Yes, they will.” The present translation brings out the rhetorical force of the question by rendering it as an affirmation.

[2:7]  sn Your creditors will suddenly attack. The Babylonians are addressed directly here. They have robbed and terrorized others, but now the situation will be reversed as their creditors suddenly attack them.

[2:7]  ² tn Heb “[Will not] the ones who make you tremble awake?”

[2:7]  ³ tn Heb “and you will become their plunder.”

[2:16]  ⁴ tn Heb “are filled.” The translation assumes the verbal form is a perfect of certitude, emphasizing the certainty of Babylon’s coming judgment, which will reduce the majestic empire to shame and humiliation.

[2:16]  ⁵ tn Or “glory.”

[2:16]  ⁶ tc Heb “drink, even you, and show the foreskin.” Instead of הֵעָרֵל (he’arel, “show the foreskin”) one of the Dead Sea scrolls has הֵרָעֵל (hera’el, “stumble”). This reading also has support from several ancient versions and is followed by the NEB (“you too shall drink until you stagger”) and NRSV (“Drink, you yourself, and stagger”). For a defense of the Hebrew text, see P. D. Miller, Jr., Sin and Judgment in the Prophets, 63-64.

[2:16]  ⁷ sn The Lord’s right hand represents his military power. He will force the Babylonians to experience the same humiliating defeat they inflicted on others.

[2:6]  ⁸ tn Heb “Will not these, all of them, take up a taunt against him…?” The rhetorical question assumes the response, “Yes, they will.” The present translation brings out the rhetorical force of the question by rendering it as an affirmation.

[2:6]  ⁹ tn Heb “and a mocking song, riddles, against him? And one will say.”

[2:6]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Woe [to] the one who increases [what is] not his.” The Hebrew term הוֹי (hoy, “woe,” “ah”) was used in funeral laments and carries the connotation of death.

[2:6]  ¹¹ tn This question is interjected parenthetically, perhaps to express rhetorically the pain and despair felt by the Babylonians’ victims.

[2:6]  ¹² tn Heb “and the one who makes himself heavy [i.e., wealthy] [by] debts.” Though only appearing in the first line, the term הוֹי (hoy) is to be understood as elliptical in the second line.